Geometric Japes

I’m not sure about these flickr badges but i can’t face all the required cutting and pasting – i think i can put one nice one here though with a bit of trickery. I need to get to bed before Josie starts – she’s coldy and toothy and miserable, poor girl.

This is a maths rod book i got at Tammy’s last week; after a bit of encouragement (she was particularly lethargic today) she set at it with TT and really enjoyed herself. Fran played with the geometric pegboard thing lots, did lots of neopets (she is SO impressed with being able to do that herself), read stories to Josie and Ammi and then at some random point they all set too with a rather bizarre game.

Basically it involved them all being some type of Superhero outfit and saving Russia, which Fran had found on the globe and our new National Geographic wall map, by buying magic potions from Yorkshire and selling them to the armies in London. Fran had the globe as her light-up World Computer and studied it intently, Maddy set up a Knex box as a laptop and Ammi was working at her workstation (the dresser and a set of filing trays) – it entertained them till 8.30pm – the weird thing was the topics that came up in their conversations; almost without exception they went to our bookshelves and found a real book, really on the subject and looked at it together. It was kind of lovely.

Actually the only other things of note were getting them and TT to sort their bookshelves out and setting up a reference section for them and setting up the Ant World. Both jobs they enjoyed.

Ammi is loving books, drawing, colouring and writing at the moment; i really need to encourage her;

Maddy turned down nursery today but is a bit resistant to anything and lolls about a lot, saying no to every offer of things to do. Its a bit hard to deal with. She did spell out “wyz” the other day and tell me that it spelt “weeks”, which, i suppose, it sort of did. She also informed me today that she can read and write and doesn’t need my help. Well okay then. Hm. She likes Explode the Code though, so that is a way in for us to do things together and she has loads of topics she is interested in.

Fran has also been a bit jaded over stuff, although she is getting much more independent and able. She also like Explode the Code and was really enjoying a maths book the other day; i’m guilty of getting into battles at times though just because it would help me a lot to be able to settle them to something for a little bit of time each day. I dunno – i think its time for the early summer re-evaluation again. Still, her reading is obviously going to change everything now, so its probably not worth fretting.

I’m feeling a touch weary, if i’m honest. I seem to spend a lot of the day doing menial stuff just to keep my head above water; i spend a lot of the day asking over and over again for simple, helpful jobs to be done so i can spend more time with them and right now, i’m getting ignored a lot. Its wearing me down. The hugely varying needs of the big two are grating at me, Ammi’s needs for decent attention and her obvious abilities are making me fret because i feel she could benefit from so much more of us, only Josie isn’t a worry! (Oh F**K, i’ve COMPLETELY forgotten about the thing on her tummy! rofl!) I feel i’m taken somewhat for granted by them all, a lot of its my fault, if i’m honest. I’m not sure my handling of family life is consistant enough at times. It says it all that i’ve threatened school at least 4 times in the last 2 days and i don’t think i have EVER done that before.

Its probably a good job we are going to be away so much this summer – we’ve had a heavy year, we need a break.